Friday, July 06, 2012

On this date in 1948 I was pitching for the Schenectady Blue Jays in the Canadian-American League. Pat Riley’s father, Lee Riley, was the Manager of that team. We were playing against the Amsterdam Rugmakers. None of that is out of the ordinary, but what happened that night is.

In that game I struck out 25 batters over the course of 15 innings.

And although I walked 12 and hit one batter, I drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 15th inning.

Bobby Valentine and I tried to figure it out once and we think that I must have thrown about 300 pitches in that game. If I were following today’s rules Riley would have pulled me in the third inning.

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Re #7 and being around when TR was President: my father's father was born in 1885, so he conceivably met people who were around when Jefferson was president.
Conclusion 1: old people
Conclusion 2: young country

Re #7 and being around when TR was President: my father's father was born in 1885, so he conceivably met people who were around when Jefferson was president.
Conclusion 1: old people
Conclusion 2: young country

My favorite one of these -- Lafayette was of course a hero of the Revolution. In 1824-25 he made a tour of the US, stopping in Brooklyn to lay the ceremonial cornerstone for the new public library. While working the crowd afterwards he kissed the 5-year-old Walt Whitman on the forehead. Whitman was later great friends with Thomas Eakins, who helped prepare Whitman's death mask* in 1892. Eakins painted a woman named Helen Montanverde Parker. Parker died in 1975. Plenty of people who knew her will still be around.

I'm 40, and as a little kid I knew my great-grandfather, who was born during Chester Arthur's first year as President.

*the original has some of Whitman's beard hairs stuck in it and is kind of gross

Thomas Hudson Jones was one of the designrers of the Tomb of the Unknowns and lived until 1969. He worked in the studio of Daniel French. Daniel Chester French died in 1931. He was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emerson met John Adams.

I remember Davey Johnson once derisively saying in the 80s he wasn't going to "Tommy Lasorda" Dwight Gooden - the reference being to the supposed ruination of Fernando at Tommy's diabolical hands. It should be noted Fernando ultimately threw 130 more innings in the majors than Gooden.